DAMON GETS DOWNSIZED
VENICE: The Venice film festival kicked off on Wednesday with Downsizing, a sci-fi-inspired drama starring a miniaturised Matt Damon, opening to effusive reviews.
Occupying a curtain-raising slot that has come to be seen as a launch pad for films with Oscar ambitions, Alexander Payne’s part satirical, part save-theplanet new work was hailed as a breath of fresh air from the Sideways and Nebraska director.
The Hollywood Reporter said Payne had “hit the creative jackpot”, while Variety welcomed a “ticklish and resonant crowd pleaser for grown ups”.
London’s Evening Standard was more reserved, praising the film as “often very funny” but bemoaning the abandonment of its initial satirical edge.
Set in the near future, the film is based on the premise that scientists have found a way to reduce humanity’s environmental footprint by downsizing humans to 12.5cm versions of themselves.
But it’s not long before the technological breakthrough is exploited for different reasons, enabling people to access a much more luxurious lifestyle than they could ever afford.
A combination of ecological and material motivations for being shrunk appeal to Paul Safranek (Damon), a frustrated but well-meaning therapist, and his wife Audrey, played by Kristen Wiig. They sign up for the surgery but she gets cold feet at the last minute, leaving Damon to embark alone on his adventure in the miniaturised world.
Among those he meets there are Christoph Waltz, who plays a louche, party-loving neighbour in his miniature condominium, and Vietnamese cleaner Ngoc Lan, played by Hong Chau.
“It’s like a journalist I was speaking to said: ‘It is Alexander’s most optimistic movie and it’s got the apocalypse in it’,” Damon quipped.
Downsizing is one of 21 films competing at the festival. AFP